


tap your heels together

by dawnishere



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Could Be Hance But I'm Playing, Gen, Homesickness, Hunk Has Two Beautiful WLW Moms, Shameless Misquoting of the Wizard of Oz, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 12:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11417913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnishere/pseuds/dawnishere
Summary: Post S2 Finale // Hunk wakes up in the middle of the night after the battle with Zarkon, feeling incredibly homesick.





	tap your heels together

It’s easy to forget about them, out here in space. 

 

He’s been so caught up in saving the universe and defeating Zarkon that he barely gets a moment to himself, let alone enough time to get introspective. 

 

But he’s here now. Zarkon is gone ( _Shiro’s gone too_ ) and Hunk has too many hours on his hands that were previously filled with battle strategies, bonding with his lion, and bonding with the other Paladins. He finds himself waking up at odd hours (as far as he could tell time in the castle), roaming the castle on as quiet a tiptoe as he can manage. After a year of sneaking out during curfew at the Garrison with Pidge and Lance, he can be pretty damn quiet. 

 

The kitchen is an obvious hideout ( _from what?_ ) but it’s too much tonight. No amount of mixing, baking, or figuring out all those Altean spices will do it for him right now. Hunk flounders in the hallway for a moment, listening to the rest of castle. It’s peaceful during the ship’s night. _Makes it easy to forget it’s a weapon._ Great, he’s thinking weird thoughts again. _Leave that kind of thinking to_ Keith _at his most emo_ , he chuckles to himself, before slapping his hand over his mouth and peeking left and right. 

 

So, the kitchen was out, but maybe the observation deck would be empty. With a tight stretch of his arms, Hunk heads there. Allura showed it to them on their first night in open space; it was beautiful, but it made him feel small. The universe made him feel small, but right now Hunk needs to remember that smallness, because it’s what’ll ( _ha_ ) ground him. He picks his way through the castle on silent, socked feet and admired the quiet permeating the air, broken only by occasional humming from the ship’s processors. 

 

He passes each of the Paladins’ rooms on his way to the deck, but doesn’t pause at any of them. Before he knows it, he’s before the wide observation glass and takes in the universe. What galaxy did Allura say they were in? It’s something long and strangely funny, the way foreign words sometimes sound when you’re learning a new language. He can see an uncountable number of stars, and he leans forward against the railing lining the room, wondering if Sol is one of them. 

 

Hunk doesn’t recognize any of the constellations. He didn’t think he would, but knowing for sure makes it so…final. He’s so far from home. _We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto._ Without warning, his hands grip the railing so hard it hurts, leaves an imprint against his palms. It isn’t until something wet drips down his chin and onto his knuckles that he realizes he’s crying. 

 

It’s harder to forget them, out here, with so much open space in front of him and nothing else to occupy his mind. It's a conscious struggle to clear his mind, to let go of everything because _Voltron_ was more important, _the universe was more important._ The universe is sitting in front of him, and its vastness mocked and comforted him in equal measure, so he stops. He holds on.

 

Hunk wipes his eyes with a shaking hand and looks out once more into the black. Ma’s last words to him echo in his ear like a ghost and for the first time in months, he lets himself remember. He thinks of her low, husky voice, made hoarse from constant use. She'd smiled, hadn’t she? She told him she loved him, but that was so pedestrian, so normal, Hunk hadn't even taken the time to appreciate it. He thinks of the proud smile gracing her warm, brown face, his own eyes looking out at him from the vid screen. His three little sisters crowded around Ma, trying to get a peek at their older brother, and it had been so _ordinary._

 

He’d kill—well he wouldn’t kill, but he would seriously maim someone for ordinary now. Space was totally cool, don’t get him wrong, but there was something reassuring about the mundane. Everyday things like _I love you, Haani_ became replaced by the decidedly extraordinary, very much without his consent.

 

He remembers that rare holiday weekend, when he’d gone home and done nothing but watch _The Wizard of Oz_ on loop with the twins. When Ma’d been able to drag him away from the couch where the three of them had taken up residence, she’d asked about his friends while guiding him through a fusion recipe she and Lani’d perfected in his absence. He remembers Lani’s advice before he left for the academy, something that seems so far away now. _Remember who you are, because no one can take that away from you._ She’d deepened her voice, affected a very _Mufasa_ tone and Hunk couldn’t stop laughing. She’d kissed him on the forehead then and promptly told him to do the dishes before Ma got back from work and saw the mess he’d made in the kitchen. Remembers the shouted, “ _I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow_ ” from 15-year-old Safiya, who’d been sullen and silent all weekend, just before he’d boarded the last airtrain to the Garrison. 

 

Hunk wonders what they’re doing right now. Hunk hopes they aren’t worried, but he knows the media coverage can’t be good. He, Pidge and Lance had effectively vanished off the face of the earth and if the world following the Kerberos mission was an example, humans had a tendency toward worry and away from optimism. Did Ma and Lani finally open the fusion restaurant they’d dreamt of forever? Did Safiya take up the mantle as the eldest in his absence? Hunk would bet his Bayard that Mele and Nalani likely rejected Saf’s authority with their characteristic stubbornness. His chest aches at the thought of them moving on ( _without him_ ) but he can never begrudge them for it. 

 

The sound of life stirring elsewhere in the castle brings Hunk out of his reverie and he steps away from the railing. Outside the observation glass, the rest of the universe lay dormant, neither mocking nor comforting. He’s been here for hours. 

 

Hunk backs out of the room contemplatively. He’s a little distracted, so sue him. He doesn’t realize how much until he bumps into the sleepy, shuffling form of Lance. Lance, to his credit, bounces only by a couple of inches, and raises a hand to rub at his eyes wearily. Hunk apologizes profusely, or as profusely as he can without making noise. They may have had trouble acting like a team back at the Garrison, but they were decent friends regardless of their working relationship, so Lance quickly catches on. There must be a remnant of the past few hours on Hunk’s face, though, because Lance frowns sympathetically before pulling him into a fierce hug. _I miss my family too_ , Lance whispers and Hunk is glad that he, of all the other paladins, was the one to find him out here in the middle of the night with only memories as company. Pidge and Keith would have tried to understand, but he couldn’t ask that of them. Not when Pidge’s brother and dad were still missing and Keith was…well, he doesn’t even know if Keith has family on Earth, if he’s honest. Frankly, he’s a little scared to ask. 

 

He and Lance part ways soon afterward, Lance heading to the kitchen and Hunk to his suite. The door slides closed with a quiet _snick_ once Hunk steps inside, and he surveys his room with an unusually critical eye. This would have to do for the next forever if he wanted to go back home to Earth one day (after saving the universe, defeating the Galran empire, winning universal adoration, you know, the usual). 

 

After all (and he smiles widely to himself because this is just so _corny_ , but he knows Nalani would love it): _there’s no place like home._

**Author's Note:**

> So many headcanons in this! 
> 
> The ones I grabbed off tumblr (thanks y'all!): Hunk's two wlw moms and multiple sisters (aka Hunk is the only dude in the family).
> 
> In my personal hc (bc I'm self-absorbed), Hunk is Bengali and Hawaiian and his given name is _Haani_ which isn't a Bengali name so much as an Islamic name meaning "content, delightful child." He has two moms, as said, that he calls Ma (his Bengali mom) and Lani (his trans Hawaiian mom). His three sisters are Safiya (15) and twins Mele and Nalani (10). I like to think that his moms basically decided they would take get an even chance at giving culturally significant names, so the Bengali/Polynesian names are half-half. 
> 
> Other details: I like the idea of Lance and Hunk being homesick together because out of all of them, they seem like they'd have family on earth they'd be very close to (might be my own projecting, but i like families of color to be close-knit in fic). I also needed a character who could empathize with Hunk about missing family without making the fic about them (which is what would have inevitably happened because Pidge and Keith's family situations are too sad in canon. There was no way for me to write them in without it taking away from Hunk's family junk). 
> 
> Thanks for reading! You can drop me a line on [tumblr](http://www.hunkul3s.tumblr.com)


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